by JE Gurley
General Stuart S. Montgomery, in charge of the task force, called for a meeting with all officers. LaBonner gathered with other officers along the edge of the field. Montgomery, a stocky, broad-shouldered man wearing desert fatigues and baseball cap, paced up and down the line with his hands clasped behind his back.
“We will divide our forces,” he announced, his voice deep and gravely. “The artillery batteries, the armor, and 5,000 personnel will form a blockade along I-10 east of Port Arthur near the Texas-Louisiana border. Once the area is secure, they will advance westward until they meet the troops north of Texas City. The remaining troops will fly in to relieve Galveston. So far, the aliens have concentrated along the coast, using the bayous and undergrowth as cover, making them difficult to locate and destroy, but eventually they will break out toward Houston. Our job is to stop them.”
As someone who had lived his life among bayous and swamps, LaBonner understood the dangers they faced. Rattlesnakes, coral snakes, cottonmouths, and alligators could be just as dangerous as alien Spiders and Wasps. Fields of reeds, ponds covered with water lilies, and cypress swamps could hide entire armies. Except for the occasional dry hummock, anytime they left the road, they would be waist deep in black water. With a storm surge and heavy rains, the water would rise over their heads.
“You officers instruct your men that the line must be held at any cost. We cannot retreat. Okay, dismissed.”
LaBonner remained standing where he was.
“What’s your problem, Captain?” Montgomery asked.
“My name is Captain Francis LaBonner, sir. I brought a Kaiju Killer team with me. We need a ride to the nearest Kaiju.”
Montgomery stared at him for a moment; then, nodded. “I see. I’ll have Major Dickerson assign you and your team a chopper. So far, both creatures are just standing there near the pit. We can’t get a drone close enough to see what they’re doing. God knows what they’re up to, but I’ll take every minute we get. Once they start moving …”
LaBonner saluted. “Good enough, sir.”
“Once you’re on the ground, we can’t provide much support. You’ll be on your own.”
“We always are, sir.”
“If the President decides on a nuclear option, we can’t give you much warning. It might be impossible to evacuate.”
“Understood, sir.”
“Gather what munitions you need. Good hunting, son.”
“Thank you, sir.”
Within the hour, he, Vance, and seven other men were aboard a Blackhawk helicopter cruising south twenty feet above the swamps at 175 mph. They flew in formation with twelve other Blackhawks transporting the first troops to Galveston. Approaching from the south over the Gulf was less risky than a direct eastern approach. They encountered two small swarms of Wasps along the coast, but the creatures paid their armada little heed, as if intent on a destination farther east. He spotted several dark shapes in the murky water below that could have been Spiders or large gators. Wide crushed paths through the reeds indicated Spiders had passed through the area. The pilot radioed in his report. Troops behind them would deal with the Spiders and Wasps. His target was much larger.
The leading edge of the storm buffeted the aircraft mercilessly. A slanting rain blew in through the open cabin door, stinging his face, but he relished the cool dampness that smelled of his childhood. Tropical Storm Deidre was building up to be a major storm front. When it hit land, it would be difficult to see their hands in front of their faces much less locate and track a Kaiju. So far, the two ebony behemoths had not strayed from the pod in which they had arrived. When they did move, stopping them would not be easy.
Vance crawled over next to him and yelled in his ear. “I don’t like this. Why aren’t they moving?”
It worried him too. He didn’t like surprises. “I don’t know. They’re waiting for something.”
“No one’s ever killed two Kaiju except Walker. We could make history.”
“If we’re not careful, Sergeant, we’ll be history.”
Vance smiled at LaBonner’s use of his new rank. Unlike him, Vance was proud of his promotion.
Their helicopter broke away from the others. “The other choppers are going in first,” the pilot announced. “They will take some of the heat from us. I’ll shoot straight north to the crater. We won’t encounter any Wasps until the last few miles. Hold on. It’s going to be rough.”
The pilot was right. The chopper danced like a marionette on a string in the strong cross gusts. He flew so low to the water that the tops of whitecaps sheered away by the wind deluged them. At times, LaBonner couldn’t tell if they were flying or floating. The rain was too heavy to make out much of Galveston Island spread out below them, but what he saw disturbed him. Scholes International Airport was a sea of wrecked aircraft. Small Beechcraft and Cessnas, their wings and fuselages shredded by Wasps, lay strewn over the tarmac. Larger Gulfstream and Lear jets had fared no better. Several displayed large holes in their fuselages where Wasps had pried away doors, windows, and stripped pieces of metal from their roofs.
Scholes was home to several companies operating helicopters serving the Gulf of Mexico oil platforms. The shattered and burned remains of Eurocopter EC-135s, Bell Jet Rangers, and Sikorsky S-61s attested to the ferocity of the alien attack. Smoke poured from the terminal building and several hangars. An aviation fuel truck had exploded while refueling an S-61. Charred parts of the chopper lay scattered around the fire-gutted vehicle.
Beyond the airport, the hulls of shattered and half-submerged boats littered the waters of Offatts Bayou on the south terminus of the I-45 Bridge. The residents of Galveston had no means of escape. The Wasps had trapped them to make hunting them easier. Explosions on the eastern end of the island marked a pitched battle between the military and swarms of Wasps, but distance and the intervening storm denied him any view of who was winning.
Crossing West Bay between Galveston Island and the mainland, they approached Bayou Vista where the pod had crashed in the middle of the fourteen artificial canals connecting with Bayou Highland. Once, rows of stately one and two-story homes with private docks had lined each side of the canals, a bedroom community for Texas City and Houston. The neighborhood was now another lake. Most of the homes were gone, pulverized by the massive impact of the Kaiju pod. Others were piles of splintered wood jutting from mounds of mud and earth pushed up by the impact and forming the crater walls. Smashed cars and boats dotted the ruins like raisins in a pudding.
The pod had struck at a shallow angle, skidding for 4,000 feet before embedding itself in the mud and the soft limestone and shale, forming a teardrop-lake. One end of the ebony pod protruded 20 feet above the surface of the muddy water. Both 1200-foot-long-Kaiju stood like enormous sentries flanking the pod, water up to their ebony bellies.
Though they were stationary, they were not idle. The long tentacles surrounding their maws whipped beneath the surface of the water, withdrew small black objects from the pod, and deposited them into the blister openings along their flanks. Glowing purple lines zigzagged along the pod’s surface. Unlike previous pods, this one had not broken open upon impact and was an integral part of the reason the Kaiju had come. He did not wish to guess what that purpose might be; however, he knew it did not bode well for humanity.
“Call in what you’re observing to HQ,” he told the pilot. “They need to be aware of this.”
They circled the water-filled crater while the pilot reported his observations. The lack of Wasps in the area disturbed him. He had never seen a Kaiju without Wasp air cover. The aliens were employing yet another new tactic. The significance eluded him. With no Wasps or Fleas delivering food to the Kaiju and with dense clouds blocking most of the solar energy, the Kaiju depleted their storehouses of energy.
“I’ll set us down as close as possible,” the pilot said. “I spotted an unbroken stretch of asphalt road about half a click away.”
LaBonner nodded. That placed them just over two clicks from th
e crater. The less time they spent slogging through the muck and mire, the better he would feel. He fought down the hard knot of anticipation growing in his stomach as the chopper settled onto the road. It was not exactly fear, although fear was a reasonable sensation facing a Kaiju; it was more a sense of finality, as if one way or another, this would be his last battle. The prospect of death did not bother him. He had counted himself among the dead long ago. Each day alive was just an aberration. He wanted his epitaph to read better than ‘He Tried.’
No matter how many times he faced a Kaiju, the image of an ant attacking an elephant popped into his mind. These new Kaiju acted differently, and he hated the unexpected. The unexpected could kill you. He checked the sky for jets but saw only rain-laden gray clouds. The Air Force was busy over Houston. Command was allowing his team first shot at the twin Kaiju. If they failed, or took too long, or if the Kaiju began moving toward Houston, they would be on ground zero of a devastating nuclear attack. It was an uncomfortable position.
“Okay, lock and load,” he called out to his team.
He exchanged glances with Vance. Only the sergeant’s tightly clenched jaw betrayed his concern. A few of the others, on their first mission, appeared uneasy at their first close-up sight of a Kaiju. They looked miserable in their rain-drenched uniforms, water running down their faces, but they stood like soldiers, backs straight, faces grim with determination. Their bearing made him proud. He offered them a few words of encouragement. For what they’re worth.
“We just need to get close enough to deliver our nuclear rockets. The targets are stationary. That makes the job easier. No sweat. The sergeant and I have done this before.”
Vance raised a questioning eyebrow but said nothing.
They followed mud-splattered, cracked streets through rows of homes damaged by the impact until the houses disappeared beneath the water and the streets became small islets of asphalt surrounded by a sea of mud. Spalled outcroppings of shattered rock disgorged by the impact, some as large as dump trucks, lay scattered across the shallow end of the basin formed by the impact. A rim of shale, chalk, and mud surrounded the northern and westward slope of the crater. Occasionally, small avalanches of mud created by the heavy downpour cascaded down the slope into the water.
“We’ll make our way to the southern dike formed by the impact. It should make movement easier.”
When he waded in, the cold water caught him by surprise. He had expected it to be warm from the impact. It stank of salt and oil released through cracks in the salt domes deep beneath the surface fractured by the Kaiju-induced quake. He urged his team to move quickly. Whatever the Kaiju were doing, their blisters remained open, offering a prime target. He didn’t know how long the opportunity would present itself.
The mud beneath the water sucked at his boots. Each laborious step required reclaiming his leg from the thick mud that fought to bind him in place. They moved in slow motion, sitting targets for any Wasps that might attack from the low-hanging gray clouds. Vance and one other soldier, each carrying M60 machineguns, trudged more slowly through the muck, lagging behind. The 23-pound weapons, plus the 100-round belts of 7.62mm ammo, weighted them down. He waited on Vance and relieved him of his ammo can.
LaBonner’s weeklong stay in the hospital without exercise had weakened him more than he had anticipated. Though sufficiently healed of his wounds, his muscles had not had time to readjust. The effort of trudging through the thick mire carrying the heavy ammo can exhausted him before he reached dry land.
The steep slope of loose rock and mud offered poor footing, especially crossing the rivulets of muddy water pouring down the slope, but at least it didn’t actively fight his progress as the mud had. As they neared the two Kaiju, he got a closer look at the objects the Kaiju were removing from the pod and depositing in their blisters. A short, stubby protrusion at one end of the oddly shaped black lumps looked uncomfortably like the barrel of a weapon. He wondered what purpose they served, and if a weapon, for what creature they were intended.
He waved the two men carrying the nuclear-tipped rockets forward. They were dangerously close to their target, but any Kaiju Killer team was expendable, even his, as long as they completed their mission. Too many lives depended upon them. The city of Houston depended on them. Nine men versus tens of thousands – the coldness of the simple equation no longer troubled him. Numbers mattered. He had not seen the truth of this earlier. As a leader, his efforts had been to complete the mission and get his men safely home. He had failed in that part. He now realized the lives of his team were beyond his control. He could do all the right things, but it might not matter. His job was to keep them alive until they got close enough to take their shot. After that, it was in God’s hands.
“The blisters remain open for about two minutes,” he told them after observing the Kaiju’s actions. He tried to read the men’s names from their nametags. The mud obscured some of the letters. “Time your shots accordingly. Brewster, you take the creature on the left; Agnew, the one on the right. You both need to fire at the same time. We might not get a second chance.”
“It’s Brewsley, sir, not Brewster.”
“Okay, Brewsley. You ready?”
Brewsley swallowed hard and nodded. He balanced the heavy launcher on his shoulder, and waited. Beside him, Agnew did the same. Both men were tense but ready. The lack of Wasps improved the odds of hitting their targets. Seconds later, everything changed. Both Kaiju stopped what they were doing and lowered until they lay half submerged in the water. LaBonner placed his hand on Brewsley’s shoulder to stop him from firing. The blisters had closed. They had missed their best opportunity.
They waited ten minutes, while the Kaiju remained immobile, and the blisters closed. Then, all the blisters on both creatures opened simultaneously. It looked as if the Kaiju were bleeding Spiders, dropping into the water with hardly a splash. They maneuvered through the mud on their thin legs as nimbly as their Earth namesakes did. LaBonner noticed the strange objects the Kaiju had been removing from the pod attached to the Spiders’ backs and knew he had been right. The Spiders, deadly enough in their own right, were now weaponized.
But what kind of weapon?
It did not take long to find out. Most of the Spiders quickly scurried from the watery crater moving northeast toward Texas City. The Kaiju blisters closed once again, and the giant creatures rose to their full height and followed. Confused by the emergence of the Spiders, his team had missed its best chance to kill the Kaiju. Waves created by the monsters’ passing crashed against the hummock on which LaBonner stood, eroding it beneath his boots. He backed up the slope while keeping his attention fixed on the new threat. Twenty Spiders remained behind. He was certain the creatures were aware of his team.
As if on a silent order, all the Spiders attacked simultaneously. The first weapon discharged, blasting a small crater in the dirt a few feet from LaBonner, splattering him with hot mud and gravel. The high-temperature beam’s passage through the rain left eddies of steam.
“Lasers!” Vance yelled in warning. “They’ve got goddamned lasers.”
The balance of power had shifted once again. Now, their enemy was armed as well as deadly.
“Scatter!” LaBonner called out. “Aim for the spot beneath their heads.”
This time, they had no mortars, only SCARS, two M60 machineguns, and grenades. They returned fire. One soldier went down when a laser beam sliced him in half. The upper portion of torso toppled and slid down the slope into the water, while his lower trunk remained planted firmly in the mud. Vance tossed a hand grenade, but the water acted as a cushion, shielding the creature from most of the concussion and shrapnel, causing little damage. LaBonner fired at the closest Spider with his SCAR, finally bringing it down after emptying a magazine, but the creatures behind it continued to advance. Vance stood in mud up to his calves, firing his M60 in short bursts to save ammunition. The armor-piercing rounds chipped their ebony carapace and tore into the Spiders’ soft spots, but ea
ch time Vance replaced a belt, the creatures moved closer.
Two more men died as the Spiders’ lasers zeroed in on their positions. The creatures were learning quickly and adapting their tactics.
“Take cover!” LaBonner yelled. The only cover was behind the ridge of debris on which they fought. As they clambered up the steep, muddy slope, another man died when a laser tore through his chest. As Vance struggled up the slope backward firing his M60, lasers striking all around him, LaBonner grabbed his belt and dragged him over the ridge to safety. He plopped onto his belly and continued firing. The battle had lasted less than a minute, and the creatures had reduced their numbers by almost half. The ridge offered some shelter. Laser blasts passed close over their heads or struck the opposite slope, showering them with scalding water and hot mud. They killed two more Spiders by carefully selecting targets and combining their firepower, but the remainder had almost reached the slope.
LaBonner knew they could not survive a concentrated attack. They had nowhere to run. Vance was down to his last two belts of ammo for the M60. Once the Spiders crested the slope, they would all die. Brewsley still carried his rocket launcher with the nuclear-tipped rocket. Vance followed LaBonner’s gaze and nodded that he understood what he was thinking. If they had missed their chance with the Kaiju, they could at least take out the Spiders. Dying for something was better than dying for nothing.
Before he could tell Brewsley to fire, a loud roar overhead drowned out his words. With a blast of air, the Blackhawk that had brought them swept over their heads and opened fire on the Spiders. The .50 caliber GAU-19 and twin 7.62mm M240 machineguns raked the creatures with a withering field of fire, killing three and confusing the rest. The pilot almost stood the chopper on its side, making a steep banking turn to bring the aircraft back around quickly for a second run. Laser beams danced across the sky. One struck the underbelly. The chopper shuddered in midair. Smoke billowed from the undercarriage.
The pilot emptied both pods of M229 70mm Hydra rockets, each weighing 13 pounds and measuring 42 inches in length. The fourteen rockets barely had time to arm themselves before they lanced into the creatures. Kaiju armor-tipped and packed with 17 pounds of explosives, the rockets ripped the Spiders to shreds.